Category: Corporate & Sovereign Strategy

League tables have long been prized by investment bankers for pitching business to governments, public and private companies. Occasionally they are scorned as tools for marketing to the uninformed. But […]

Just days before Argentina?s momentous $29.52 billion debt exchange last May, the government managed to pull together support for a $1.1 billion patriotic bond. When international investors shied away and nervously awaited the outcome of the exchange, the government crafted a deal to garner domestic support.

Mention Brazil, Mexico or Argentina to intellectual property owners a few years ago and exasperation was the mildest response you could have expected. But times have changed. International trade agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta), the existence of the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the realization that multinationals need to see strong intellectual property regimes before investing, have led to major improvements in the protection for rights owners. Among the beneficiaries of improved legislation have been domestic companies who are now enjoying more protection as a result of external pressures.

National Law Center for Inter-American Free Trade Product Liability in Latin America: A Seminar for US Manufacturers, Exporters and Lawyers September 20-21, 2001, Sofitel Hotel, Miami, FLDiscussion and presentations on […]

A new phase of securitization in Latin American is beginning, slowly. While cross-border future flow transactions are still the bulk of the region?s asset-backed financing, more and more jurisdictions are laying the legal groundwork to allow a greater level of mortgage-backed financing. Brazil and, especially Mexico, are building up primary and secondary mortgage markets. Colombia, and to a lesser extent Chile, are also developing mortgage markets though neither country has yet logged significant transactions. Argentina was Latin America?s pioneer and leader in this area of finance but the economic crisis has stunted securitization activity.

As one of the world?s biggest opportunities for power-generation investment, one would think that Brazil would be inundated by foreign companies ready to pour millions into its large-scale thermal power plants that access the fuel reserves of the Brazil? Bolivia pipeline. Think again. Investors in Brazilian power must negotiate several obstacles, including hedging foreign currency risks, a murky privatization plan, and time-consuming environmental licensing. Although the upper echelons of government are trying to smooth the process for foreign investors in power generation, the courts are not playing favorites to powerful multinationals who are having to wait in line with everyone else.

New Arbiter in airline merger case Jorge Pinzon, Colombia’s newly appointed industry and trade superintendent, is stepping in to arbitrate the merger plans of Colombia’s two largest airlines after the […]

Along the sandy coast of the Gulf of Mexico rests Brazoria County, Texas. This agrarian community with its roots firmly planted in Texas tradition boasts the Annual Great Mosquito Festival and the Mexican Fiesta Youth Rodeo?not exactly an international city of law. But in an ironic twist of culture clash, this quiet Southern court system was subjected to the judicial version of polar attraction. Because the Texas state court system allows foreign residents to bring personal injury and wrongful death cases into the courts, Bolivia launched a major cross-border product liability suit smack in the middle of Brazoria.